making my gear work for me

wes480

wes480

New member
So, it's been a little while since I worked on a recording project...and when I broke everything out again, I remembered part of the reason why I got fed up with it last time.

I did a total reworking of my soundcard/software setup...and got the drivers and latency and all that taken care of so that it now seems very stable and easy to use...that was step one.

But, (and don't get me wrong, I don't have TONS of gear)...it seems like I can't use the gear that I have very effectively.

I don't have any desire to spend any more money right now - for instance, at one point I looked into patchbays...but, never was convinced it would help me or sure of what I needed. I'm just going to list the gear that I have - and maybe someone could offer me an idea of how to get this stuff setup so that I don't feel like I have to be unplugging and plugging a lot of stuff in and out all of the time, or moving it around, not being able to use multiple things at once...whatever...

Gear:
Aardvark Q10 Soundcard
Mackie HR824 Monitors
Soundcraft Spirit M12 Mixer
RNC
Drawmer DL241
Avalon U5
Studio Projects VTB1

...or, maybe with what I have it's just going to be a grab it when you need it and plug it in kind of game...just doesn't feel like a "studio" that way though
 
I don't really get what you're looking for. Are you looking for a way to do the initial tracking or for the mixing afterwords? Do you mix in the box?
 
good question...

I am concerned with tracking at the moment...how to get everything working together as much as possible.

Mixing I will do basically on the box - but if i wanted to output to the mixer, and back in to the soundcard...that's easy enough...
 
It's pretty simple. You want to go mic to pre to your aardvark.

You can do it all at once with up to 8 (I think on the aardvark?) tracks at a time, or you can just initially record drums, then overdub everything else.

It is pretty much a grab a pre you need and plug in type of thing, that's why you have the great pres. :)
 
what about compressors? the aardvark has fx inputs (4)...but maybe it'd be better to run the compressors and stuff through the mixer, and go

soundcraft - fx- aardvark pres
 
If it were me, I would go the patchbay route. Once it is set up, you can go from track to mix much easier than having to rethink your setup and connecting or unconnecting chains.

Since I setup my patch bay, soon to be bays, I can connect and reconnect much faster to various components.

A decent home patch bay should not cost more than $100 with the bay and cables. That's how much mine cost anyway. But if your not going to go there then here is the way I would connect what you have.

Connect the M12 to the Q10 in and out.
Hang the Drawmer and the RNC off the M12. This way you can use either of them to limit during tracking. Later you can come out the Q10 and pick them up for track compression in the mix.

Put the VTB-1 and the U5 into their own channel on the M12, if you can do pre and post routing then you can use, or not use, the board in the signal path for these two. If you don't have pre and post I would direct line them, which you can do on the Soundcraft, just to get them to the Q10.

You can either run the Mackies directly off the Q10 coming out, my personal choice, or route them off the M12 as a submix monitor.

Now you can jump from track to mix rather easily, depending on your software of course. Have not heard the XLR pres on the Q10 but I would imagine they are not as usable for vocals as the M12. Maybe instruments though.

Best I can do..
 
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